I have modified the Puppy Universal Installer and fixed some bugs. (I used the one from 2.14)

Please try it and report how it works.

If you have any requests concerning it, NOW is the time to make them.

I have one question, in case someone can help:
I have enabled installing to USB harddrives just like internal harddrives, but there's a comment of Barry's about USB harddrives needing syslinux -- in fact being installed like USB flash drives.
Does anyone know anything about this? I could easily make a distinction between "internal" harddrives and have the "externals" (USB) grouped with USB flash drives and installed like them.

I have just updated the attachment, a little bug fixed and some other things modified.

Lobster: LS-120 is a type of ZIP drive.

At the moment it might install to a USB external HD, but will do so like installing to an internal HD -- that's what I'm not sure about.
It should install to a SD card._________________What's the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's your mind

could you add a description so that it is more clear that you can only do a full (option 2) install on a linux partition. here's the thread about it http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=111869

Also on the same page where you are given the option between "normal" and "co-exist" can you put (full hard drive) and (frugal) above the buttons or something. I know it says it on that page but there's a lot of text there and I don't think everyone will read it. Might want to put (option 1) and (option 2) there too.

Maybe we could even put (reccomended) near the frugal install? Some people might not like it, but I think it's easier to manage and it's closer to how Puppy was meant to be run.

Also we could have a button that says "which install is right for me" or "help me choose", then we could bring up a longer page that lists the benefits of each type of install, such as full-install is better if you have 128MB or less of memory, and frugal is much easier to back up. I could write a wiki page about choosing if that would be better than writing it yourself. Maybe we could even have a page for each "page" of the installer, so it would be easier to have people help you write that text.

Just my thoughts. Thanks for working on updating the installer Dougal.

Jason

[edit]sorry Dougal, I seem to be slipping...[/edit]_________________Last edited by bostonvaulter on Sun 22 Apr 2007, 23:09; edited 1 time in total

Dougal, the most recent version of the puppyinstaller is in 2.16exp, last updated 3rd April. I don't recall what has been changed, minor I think, but it would be best if you could do a compare and incorporate my changes since 2.14, in case there's anything important.
Attached

Maybe we could even put (recommended) near the frugal install? Some people might not like it, but I think it's easier to manage and it's closer to how Puppy was meant to be run.

I only just discovered a frugal install. Really because the grub setup was beyond my ken and running from a pristine and new CD every 6 weeks cleared a lot of the gunk, uped my experience level etc. Now with a little more experience it seems quite straightforward to set up a frugal . . . It is probably even easier with the universal installer

Perhaps a help option to describe what exactly each install type/medium is and what the advantages and circumstances for use are?_________________YinYana AI Buddhism

1. I don't mind "NORMAL" and "COEXIST" but found the Type 1 vs Type 2 confusing when the options are actually in reverse order; Normal comes first (left to right) but is Type 2, and Coexist comes second (left to right) but is Type 1.

2. Also there is way too much text that doesn't really explain clearly enough what's going to happen during the install. Like most I always accept the advice to simply choose the default options. Maybe a popup tool tip for each button would clear the clutter a little? Don't know if that's possible with different WM's. Just asking.

3. This one is crucial, IMHO. Make BOTH install types lead in to an option to create a Grub boot on the hard drive. COEXIST will do a Frugal install, but leaves the user lost as to how to boot if they don't want to use a floppy; most Frugal users don't.

4. As long as you're upgrading PUI, then Grub config also should be upgraded - the two are practically inseparable, despite being separate scripts. Grub config needs to make different menu.lst file entries depending on whether a Normal or Coexist install was chosen.

5. Can the number of drive choices be categorised in some way? For example; USB device, then an option to choose memory stick, external hard drive, whatever?

6. Finally, can the PUI create a one-time boot script for the new install that puts the user straight into the Wizard wizard? I solved the problem in 2.15CE by having the Setup icon right next to the menu button so it was virtually unmissable. Better if the user understands they still have some setup duties AFTER the GUI boots, too.

Hope I haven't been too greedy with my requests, Dougal. _________________Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't!
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

I am right now using the 2.15CE PUI to create a 2.15CE Option 2 install to an ext3 partition for testing purposes. Barry and Dougal, I don't know if you have changed this already in your new versions, but I notice the following typos in the dialog box "Puppy universal installer: SANITY CHECK"...

Ehhhh, and now I'm in a dialog box labeled "Puppy universal installer" which says,

"Please insert the Puppy live-CD (if not already) into the drive. Note, in case your PC has two CD/DVD drives, Puppy is expecting the live-CD to be inserted into hdb, which is described as:
WDC WD102BA

The live-CD should be (and already is) in the drive which MUT calls "PLEXTOR DVDR PX-760A"...

Better wording and accurate placement of my DVD drive would be,

"Please insert the Puppy live-CD (if not already inserted) into the drive. Note: in case your PC has two CD/DVD drives, Puppy is expecting the live-CD to be inserted into hdc, which is described as:
PLEXTOR DVDR PX-760A

After inserting live-CD, click OK button..."

I'm going to cancel out and start fresh. I did have to unmount the hdb drive per PUI's warning on the prior screen, and perhaps unmounting hdb in the middle of PUI confused it.

Enough of this, it's late here. In 20 hours or so I'll unpack vmlinuz, initrd.gz, and pup_215.sfs to their own partition on one of the other hard disks in this machine and try PUI with that as the source.

Hi Dougal, thanks for doing this, I have always found the installer a little confusing (like the option 1, option 2 being reversed and a clearer description (including a frugall install and the pros and cons ) would be most useful. Also automounting the CD seems to make a lot of sense (didn't it used to do that?), I found mounting very confusing to begin with.

Any chance that someone could write a script to enable an install straight to HDD or USB stick etc direct from the downloaded ISO (would save a lot of CD's being burnt), be faster for testers.(could be made as a dotpup and later incorporated into Universal installer?)) Checkiing the pole currently 48% of Puppy installs are to the HDD.
Many thanks. Tony

The last time I tried to use the installer was about a month ago. I was trying to install an older version of Puppy onto Flash memory to put into a Nohrtec Jr. (This came with 2.14 and was too slow.)

I got right to the end of the process and it failed a final "sanity check" which stated that it was an earlier version of Puppy. There was no option to proceed regardless. I think this "sanity check" menu should give the option of proceeding or aborting.

Whilst I like the latest Puppy, sometimes you want to install something else!

If CD/DVD identification is troublesome, copying the Puppy files to a temporary hard disk directory could help. This can be done by the user himself at the start. This will also allow extraction of files from the ISO, if there is such a utility added to the process.

I also agree that Grub should be tailored to each install. Right now the frugal install has no matching menu.lst settings.

Why don't we "promote" frugal install by calling it the "preferred" install of Puppy?

Ok, I'll go over all these requests and try and accomodate as many as I can.

I have just updated the attachment in the first message:
I have made a separate option for USB HD.
I have fixed some little bugs. Also changed the way I find SATA drives (they apear as "Direct-Access", rather than "disk").

Regarding some of the comments above:

I have already changed the cdrom part so it doesn't ask you to put the cd in a specific drive -- it just checks both drives.

I have also changed the wording of some dialogs.

I think it might be a problem to change the "option 1" and "option 2" naming, since those terms are already widely used (on many forum threads) so it might cause a bit of confusion... I'll see what I can do to clarify it, though.

Concerning installation from an ISO: it's already an option: you can choose a directory that has the files -- just mount the iso and select the mountpoint.

It would be best if people try and run my modified script (at least half-way through, when you can still bail out), so the comments will be more relevant to how it is now (there could be simple bugs like drives not being detected...)

Also, I could use some info on things like USB hard-drives -- even just the output of test-scsi or probedisk._________________What's the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's your mind

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